A story from the past!
Sighting
Silent, but not really. I have thought that’s what silence was, now I know and I knew then, of course, that true silence is only attained out in the country. Somewhere far removed from the thick pocket of humanity that is the city. And what a thick pocket it is... I believed and I still do, that night there was something strange going on. It was too silent, maybe that’s what made it spooky or maybe I had just had a little too much second hand ganja. Either way, to me it was absolutely silent down by the river that night.
By “absolutely silent” I mean there was plenty of noise; my dark sneakers crunching the twigs and leaves and the occasional squelching of me pulling my foot out of the mud if it was sucked in. The waves of the river lapped against the shore about six feet to my left, and my companion’s muted breathing somewhere behind me. So, envision that. But it was completely silent. Maybe it was the lack of breeze or wind, or maybe the lack of the little things running through the underbrush off the path. Either way to me it felt, like something was wrong. And to me a born and bred city boy, wrong equals silence. Or maybe vice versa.
Anyway, me and my companion had been down there wandering back and forth up and down the bank. We were on time, but the delivery boy wasn’t. Which in itself wasn’t strange, I had dealt with this particular runner before and well, I was frankly surprised he was still in business. I finally decided to sit down and take a breather for a few minutes before resuming or pacing of the bank. The cement block I sat down on was about fifteen feet from the river with a height of 10 feet. A long pipe leading from the river into the cement block connected to the sewer system of Minneapolis. Which meant that on any other day it would have reeked, but that night it was surprisingly scentless and I wasn’t about to sit on some dirty log. So I sat on some dirty concrete, but it was cool and not like damp cool. But just cool to the touch which was enough for me; it was a warm night.
Besides I had a lot on my mind and decided me sitting and actually thinking about it for awhile would be a lot more effective then me just pushing to the back of my mind. It was getting annoying, verging on painful to ignore the facts as they were. But for whatever reason, I sat down and my companion sat a little to my left. We hadn’t said much since we left, which was fine although at the time I was kind of wishing he would so I wouldn’t have my own thoughts to dig into. But he didn’t and he wasn’t about to start, at least... not yet.
We sat there maybe three minutes and he laid back on the cement and stared at the sky. Not much to see with the tree branches covering up most of the sky and the stars obliterated from the light pollution. I glanced upward anyway, but then stopped. Something out of the bottom of my eye made me pause. Something had jumped or splashed in the river. My gaze returned to the level of the water and I could clearly see the ripples expanding from the point of disruption.
Meh, I thought. Just some fish or something.
Then I froze, and I’m not sure if I was terrified or fascinated or both or neither. But the point is I stopped doing anything and just stared at the water. Something was rising from it, not jumping or splashing but actually coming slowly out of the water like some prehistoric creature. I strained my eyes as hard as I could but in the muted light all I could see was the lines of light reflecting from it’s smooth, wet surface. It’s skin was hard to see and thus hard to describe, but it must have been a dark color since there was some light coming from the sky. Just not enough to see specific colors and textures. The skin just looked smooth, wet and dark.
It was looking (I think) across the river at the far bank and was keeping its body leaning forward, it’s entire torso and lizard like head was never more then one foot out of the water. Then suddenly it was gone, it simply slipped under the water leaving nothing but ripples of water and an eerie silence where it was a second ago.
It’s sudden disappearance coupled with a nagging in the back of my mind forced me to gasp in a mouthful of air. My pulse was racing and my breath came a little too quickly, thinking back I was probably holding my breath while the thing was visible. You know when you can feeling your heart thumping against your chest, so hard it’s almost slamming and there is a throbbing noise in your ears. My partner was startled by my sudden intake of breath and sat bolt upright and looked round wildly, searching for a non-existent threat.
“It’s... alright,” I squeezed out of my throat. “I was... just startled.”
“By what?” he was still scanning the surroundings overzealously.
“A fish jumped in the river,” I could feel my heart rate returning to normal, along with my breathing.
A few minutes of silence later he said, “You know... my dad, once told me this story about the time he saw this strange thing in the river, prolly a buncha shit. Ya wanna hear it?”
I stared at him, feeling that cold pinprick of ice slowly rise up my spine with each word.
This is a true story. No shit! While I'm sure there's an explanation, I kinda like the whole bizzare creature scenario. Needless to say I want to see it again, but also, it's kinda alarming.
Silent, but not really. I have thought that’s what silence was, now I know and I knew then, of course, that true silence is only attained out in the country. Somewhere far removed from the thick pocket of humanity that is the city. And what a thick pocket it is... I believed and I still do, that night there was something strange going on. It was too silent, maybe that’s what made it spooky or maybe I had just had a little too much second hand ganja. Either way, to me it was absolutely silent down by the river that night.
By “absolutely silent” I mean there was plenty of noise; my dark sneakers crunching the twigs and leaves and the occasional squelching of me pulling my foot out of the mud if it was sucked in. The waves of the river lapped against the shore about six feet to my left, and my companion’s muted breathing somewhere behind me. So, envision that. But it was completely silent. Maybe it was the lack of breeze or wind, or maybe the lack of the little things running through the underbrush off the path. Either way to me it felt, like something was wrong. And to me a born and bred city boy, wrong equals silence. Or maybe vice versa.
Anyway, me and my companion had been down there wandering back and forth up and down the bank. We were on time, but the delivery boy wasn’t. Which in itself wasn’t strange, I had dealt with this particular runner before and well, I was frankly surprised he was still in business. I finally decided to sit down and take a breather for a few minutes before resuming or pacing of the bank. The cement block I sat down on was about fifteen feet from the river with a height of 10 feet. A long pipe leading from the river into the cement block connected to the sewer system of Minneapolis. Which meant that on any other day it would have reeked, but that night it was surprisingly scentless and I wasn’t about to sit on some dirty log. So I sat on some dirty concrete, but it was cool and not like damp cool. But just cool to the touch which was enough for me; it was a warm night.
Besides I had a lot on my mind and decided me sitting and actually thinking about it for awhile would be a lot more effective then me just pushing to the back of my mind. It was getting annoying, verging on painful to ignore the facts as they were. But for whatever reason, I sat down and my companion sat a little to my left. We hadn’t said much since we left, which was fine although at the time I was kind of wishing he would so I wouldn’t have my own thoughts to dig into. But he didn’t and he wasn’t about to start, at least... not yet.
We sat there maybe three minutes and he laid back on the cement and stared at the sky. Not much to see with the tree branches covering up most of the sky and the stars obliterated from the light pollution. I glanced upward anyway, but then stopped. Something out of the bottom of my eye made me pause. Something had jumped or splashed in the river. My gaze returned to the level of the water and I could clearly see the ripples expanding from the point of disruption.
Meh, I thought. Just some fish or something.
Then I froze, and I’m not sure if I was terrified or fascinated or both or neither. But the point is I stopped doing anything and just stared at the water. Something was rising from it, not jumping or splashing but actually coming slowly out of the water like some prehistoric creature. I strained my eyes as hard as I could but in the muted light all I could see was the lines of light reflecting from it’s smooth, wet surface. It’s skin was hard to see and thus hard to describe, but it must have been a dark color since there was some light coming from the sky. Just not enough to see specific colors and textures. The skin just looked smooth, wet and dark.
It was looking (I think) across the river at the far bank and was keeping its body leaning forward, it’s entire torso and lizard like head was never more then one foot out of the water. Then suddenly it was gone, it simply slipped under the water leaving nothing but ripples of water and an eerie silence where it was a second ago.
It’s sudden disappearance coupled with a nagging in the back of my mind forced me to gasp in a mouthful of air. My pulse was racing and my breath came a little too quickly, thinking back I was probably holding my breath while the thing was visible. You know when you can feeling your heart thumping against your chest, so hard it’s almost slamming and there is a throbbing noise in your ears. My partner was startled by my sudden intake of breath and sat bolt upright and looked round wildly, searching for a non-existent threat.
“It’s... alright,” I squeezed out of my throat. “I was... just startled.”
“By what?” he was still scanning the surroundings overzealously.
“A fish jumped in the river,” I could feel my heart rate returning to normal, along with my breathing.
A few minutes of silence later he said, “You know... my dad, once told me this story about the time he saw this strange thing in the river, prolly a buncha shit. Ya wanna hear it?”
I stared at him, feeling that cold pinprick of ice slowly rise up my spine with each word.
This is a true story. No shit! While I'm sure there's an explanation, I kinda like the whole bizzare creature scenario. Needless to say I want to see it again, but also, it's kinda alarming.